Issue #1, January 2013, Part I
**
J.G. Preston discusses SOM History and his Experiences
**
(written by J. G. Preston based upon
questions from the Wolfman)
(Notes from the Wolfman:
Unless you played Strat-o-matic
back in the 1970's you might not know about J.G. One
comment I could make about J.G. is that I wouldn't be here
probably as an avid gamer if it wasn't for J.G. My nickname of
"Wolfman" was given by J.G. when I joined one of his mail
leagues that he promoted in the SOM Review in 1972. But J.G. has
his own interesting story to tell which I think you will enjoy
as he had the priviledge to work for the game company and get to
know many of the people who supported the game company in the
early days. Eventually he became a sports announcer and
director.)
Wolfman:
{The communication began on Facebook,
January 3rd, 9:35 AM, Pacific Time and continued over a few days
through January 8th}
Is this the JG
Preston who use to live in NY and lived and died SOM? If so you
were the fellow who gave me my nickname in the good all early
days - I would like to speak with you?
J.G.:
Wolfman! I
remain the only J.G. of any type I've ever encountered. Howdy!
Wolfman:
Good to be back in touch but you are
grown up and living in LA now I see - two great baseball
teams to route for are you still playing SOM Mr.
Preston? {Note - in J.G.'s photo on FB he has an LA
hat!}
J.G.:
Actually, despite the
LA on the cap in my photo, we're in northern California, just
outside San Francisco, moved out here from Minnesota seven years
ago. I'm not a huge Giants or A's fan but I'm happy when they do
well. It's kind of funny, I still follow baseball fairly closely
but don't watch much anymore. I do wind up getting roped into a
fantasy league every year so I kind of know who's who.
I haven't played Strat in any form (cards/dice
or computer, any of the sports) for quite a few years now...once
I got married and had kids I didn't really have much time for
gaming and got away from it. Once the youngest went off to
college I did start playing again a few years ago, but I've been
spending my time with Replay baseball...I had known one of the
game's creators through APBA and played it some after it came
out in the early '70s. The game is under different ownership
now. It's nicely done. The good old original basic SOM baseball
remains elegant in its simplicity and is a great introduction to
that whole wonderful world of baseball and gaming, and advanced
SOM seems to have been the primary education for pretty much
anyone our age who wound up working in baseball.
Wolfman:
JG - did you become a sports announcer? I think Butch Haber told
me about this. {Note: Butch is another old friend I met on
Facebook who recognized me and I met him at the SOM 1973
Convention in Brooklyn, hopefully in Issue #2, we will hear from
Butch and his stories ...}
J.G.:
Up until four years
ago I spent my working life in radio and TV, although sometimes
I did other things in addition. For five years in the '80s I was
sports director for a state radio network in Minnesota, covered
the Twins, did two years of play-by-play for U of Minnesota
football and spent a season as the studio host on the Minnesota
North Stars hockey radio broadcasts. Later on I did a bunch of
radio play-by-play for small college and high school football
and basketball. I wasn't good enough to do it at a higher level,
but I certainly did enjoy it!
--------
Email Correspondence Chatter Prior to J.G.'s Article to
Answer my Questions
Wolfman:
JG - do you have any memory of why you felt to call me "Wolfman"?
As I recall this happened after I joined your mail league in
1972 called the Metropolitan Baseball Association, I think you
created a six team minor league with players not used in your
major league. We inherited the Skokie Chiefs who won the
league and I had to send you my photo.
J.G.:
My memory may not be
great, but I think "Wolfman" came to mind as soon as I saw the
photo...not that beards were uncommon in that day, and I never
watched any Wolfman movies, but I'm sure it was just the first
thing that came to my mind. I can't remember if by that time
Wolfman Jack was working at WNBC Radio in NY...when he did start
working there I listened to him all the time, so "Wolfman" would
have been pretty high in my consciousness. But he didn't come to
New York until the summer of 1973, and that photo may have
predated that.
{Editor's Note:
- so this nickname
stuff and especially when I played Donna Chevrette in 1972 in a
mail series, one of the few female SOM baseball players and this
was reported in the SOM Review - then everyone heard of Rick "Wolfman"
Shapiro but this is another story to report in a future Issue.}
Wolfman:
JG on Facebook you said you really appreciate the Basic Baseball
game, do you prefer this version over the Advance version?
J.G.:
I did prefer the
advanced version of SOM to the basic--the simulation of platoon
splits was groundbreaking and really important--but I don't
think the basic game gets enough credit for being the elegant
creation that it is. Sure it doesn't measure up in some ways,
but to do as much as it does being as simple as it is is really
quite an accomplishment.
--------
J.G.'s Article Answering my Questions via Email - Part I
{On January 13th, I sent to J.G. a few questions, but he
responded by sharing his answer in an article form - I will try
hear to match his answers to the questions asked. Part II of
this article will appear in the 2nd part of this issue we will
release shortly...}
Wolfman:
J.G. - how did you
first get involved with Baseball Table Games and when did you
meet Strat-o-matic Baseball?
J.G.:
The first
simulation game I played as a kid was Ethan Allen's All-Star
Baseball. A neighbor friend had it and we spent quite a bit of
time playing. But I didn't really get immersed in gaming until
the summer of 1967, when I was nine. We lived in Louisville, and
my parents took my brother and me to see a Reds game in
Cincinnati. At the newsstand of the Holiday Inn where we stayed,
I got my first look at The Sporting News . . . we got Sports
Illustrated at home, which I liked to read, but here was a
publication that was all about baseball! I bought one and loved
it . . . it was the issue with Gary Peters, Joe Horlen and Tommy John
on the cover.
Inside was an ad
for APBA baseball. I was intrigued. I sent away for the brochure
and I was instantly hooked -- I had to have this game. I told my
parents I would pay for it by doing some chores around the
house, but I hated doing chores. Instead I paid for it with a
good day at the track, my dad took me to Churchill Downs and I
made some money at the betting window (well, he had to put down
the bets). I was quite obsessed with handicapping the horses
when I was nine.
Once APBA came
into my life I played it, a lot, starting with that 1966 season
set I received in 1967. Not long after that the first APBA fan
publication started, the APBA Journal, and it wasn't too long
before I got into play-by-mail leagues. The one I was in the
longest was a very well run league called CANAM run by Norm Roth
of Hamilton, Ontario. Even though Norm was a grown-up and I was
a kid, we got to be pretty good friends, and I even went up to
Hamilton once to visit Norm and his family. Norm went on to
become one of the creators of the Replay baseball game.
{Editor's
Note:
although our newsletter is focused upon Strat-o-matic Baseball,
many of us have looked at other games, while I believe SOM is
the best, in-directly playing with other games inspired us to
look at Strat-o-matic and the early days (1960's and 1970's) I
believe the two best baseball table games were Strat-o-matic and
APBA, which having not studied APBA I will assume is similar.
But I think the game company has gone all out to make the game
we love so realistic with all the new super advance rules and
for this we at this newsletter are forever grateful and wish to
acknowledge the dedication SOM gives to realism!}
My dad got a new
job in the summer of 1968, and at the end of that summer we
moved to Port Washington, New York. I don't know how it clicked
with me that Strat-o-Matic was located there, probably from
seeing the address in their ads in the baseball magazines I
read. And I really don't remember when my first contact with
them was, or what form it took . . . you could call them on the phone,
or you could stop by their office, which was in a small
warehouse next to the Long Island Rail Road tracks not too far
from where we lived. My first SOM purchase was the football
game, which was then brand new, with the 1967 season cards. I'll
bet that wasn't too long after we moved to Port Washington. My
first baseball game purchase had the 1968 season cards, but I
don't think that was until late 1969.
Once I had SOM
baseball, that became the focus of my baseball playing . . . I don't
think I even bought the 1969 season APBA cards (although I did
buy their cards for several years after that and even played in
some more APBA mail leagues). I played a lot of solitaire SOM in
1970.
Wolfman:
I don't know if you
remember J.G. but back in the early seventies (1972 or so), how
we first met, which I believe came indirectly via an ad you put
in the SOM Review for a mail league you were offering, how did
you decide to organize these mail leagues, what was your
motivation? As I recall I became a member of what you called a
minor league to the Metropolitan Baseball Association with five
other managers who I met all of them at the SOM Convention in
Kalamazoo, MI that year including yourself. What can you tell
our readers about the mail leagues your organized?
J.G.:
When was
it the Strat-o-Matic Review started, early 1971? Whenever it was
I subscribed right away and decided to run my own mail league. I
was 13, and I wasn't terribly good at running leagues . . . at any
rate I was much better at starting things than maintaining them.
And I'm not sure any of the leagues I ran ever successfully
finished a season, at least with all teams completing their
schedule and compiling stats and everything. But I always
enjoyed doing newsletters. That was one of the things I loved
about Norm Roth's CANAM league, he had these great newsletters.
My dad found an old mimeograph machine that he brought home for
me to use, and I was always going to the stationery store to buy
ditto masters and duplicating fluid. I know I did at least one
bigger production that included player photos clipped out of The
Sporting News or some such thing that dad had photocopied at his
office -- being able to get something photocopied seemed like a
pretty big deal then. That newsletter included Sporting
News-like stories with fake quotes from the players, stuff like
that. Just fun imaginary stuff for a teenage baseball fan to do.
Wolfman:
It seems to me when
we were having this contact and our friendship in the early
70's, that you had some type of relationship or contact with the
people working at the SOM game company because you lived in Port
Washington, NY where the game company was once located. What can
you share with our readers about this amazing time?
J.G.:
I was a
regular visitor at Strat-o-Matic because I was purchasing new
products and cards as they would come out, and I'm sure I sent
Hal Richman my "suggestions" for new wrinkles in the games, not
that I recall if they were any good or not. But, I spent a lot
of time thinking about it. Mr. Richman seemed intrigued to find
out that I was playing the advanced version of the football game
when I was 11 or whatever.
At any rate at
some point in the spring of 1973, when I was 15 and finishing my
sophomore year of high school, he made me an offer. (At least I
think it was 1973, I don't think I was doing this in 1972.) SOM
had introduced the lefty/righty splits in the advanced version
of the baseball game, but they had to generate the actual
statistics themselves, they weren't available in any
publications or even in most cases from the teams themselves.
So Mr. Richman
purchased the printed play-by-play of the games from the
Associated Press . . . they would come on rolls of teletype paper.
From there the results would be coded for a data entry operator
to put into a computer to create the season stats. The coding
was simple enough for a fanatic baseball fan to do, so Mr.
Richman hired me to do the coding so that he and Steve Barkan
and James Williams could be free to do more important things
they needed to do for the company, especially as they had
expanded into basketball and were now doing three sports.
So I would go to
the SOM office and get a bunch of these play-by-play rolls, code
them and return them. It would usually be a few weeks after the
games were played before we got the printouts. The coding was
very simple, just indicating whether the play result was a
single, double, triple, home run or out, as well as including
any batter or pitcher changes during the game. There were
probably some other things tracked as well -- I'm pretty sure we
kept track of both successful and unsuccessful bunt attempts for
the bunting ratings. Mr. Richman paid me piecemeal, per game
coded, I think the rate was 50 cents a game but I can't be sure
about that now. As I recall I had to stop doing it once the
school year started back up because I didn't have enough time,
but I coded a lot of games in the summers of 1973 and '74, and
that coding produced the stats that went into creating the
advanced side of the cards.
At some point Mr.
Richman also hired me to help out in the office for an hourly
wage. I think that also started in 1973 and I would just work
mornings . . . Mr. Richman would open the mail, take out any payments,
and then I got involved in fulfilling the requests for
brochures. I can't remember exactly what the process was but I'm
pretty sure I was the one who actually put the brochures in the
envelopes, although the office secretary surely either typed the
addresses on the envelopes or maybe there was even some sort of
computer she could use to generate labels for the envelopes.
Most of the brochure requests came from the comic book ads that
SOM ran a lot of in those days, but some would come in baseball
magazines (or magazines for the other sports) and some would
just be written requests without one of the mail-in coupons from
the ads. I couldn't drive but it was easy to walk or bike to the
office from our house.
My second summer
there, 1974 (after my junior year of high school), I got to work
all day. After I would finish the brochures I could then help
out in the shipping room, picking the orders. One of the
grownups on staff would actually put the mailing labels on the
shipping boxes and seal them and affix the postage. SOM had
gotten into the retail business with a few New York department
stores and game stores, I can't remember the number of outlets
involved, but at any rate we would spend some time
shrink-wrapping game boxes for delivery to the retailers.
But the big fun I
had in the summer of 1974 was getting to help play-test Mr.
Richman's latest creation, a college football game. People are
more likely to remember the college football game he did in the
1980s that was pretty similar to the pro game, but the one in
the '70s was really innovative, and alas it didn't seem to catch
on. As I recall dice weren't involved at all, which was a huge
change for a company that was known for its "dice games." Mr.
Richman's intent was to create a game that had strategies
similar to card games, like poker or bridge. To be a successful
coach you had to not only have some sense of football strategy
but understand the game strategy as well.
James
(especially) and Steve were both excellent at playing this game,
I enjoyed playing against them quite a bit and learned from them
but I don't know if I ever beat them. Mr. Richman would tinker
with the rules and the charts and the playing cards and then we
would play test games and he would analyze the results and make
modifications. As I say, it was great fun to be paid to be
involved with this. The game didn't catch on in part because it
was SO different from the other SOM products, especially the pro
football game, plus it really didn't translate well to playing
solitaire. But as a head-to-head game it presented an
interesting challenge, and like poker, where the best players
can often overcome having inferior cards to win, a coach who
really had the game mastered had an excellent chance to win even
with an inferior team.
Mr. Richman was
quite kind to me and supportive of me, and he always paid me
more than minimum wage, which I thought was very generous
treatment of a high school kid. I'm pretty sure my pay in 1974
was $2.25 an hour when minimum wage was $2. I know for a fact I
had jobs after high school, including jobs as a radio announcer,
that paid less than what Mr. Richman paid me. Another great
benefit of working there, as I recall, was getting the product
for free . . . maybe we just got a big discount, but I seem to think
it was free for employees. Not that there were many employees, I
think when I was there Mr. Richman had only four full-time
year-round employees.
Wolfman:
What other memories do you have
about Strat-o-matic? How did you get involved in being a sports
announcer?
J.G.:
I should
mention I attended the first three SOM conventions -- Kalamazoo in
1972, Brooklyn in 1973 and yours in Champaign in 1974. The
Kalamazoo convention actually turned out to be pretty important
in my life, because that's where I met Brad Furst. Brad was from
northwest Iowa, and I forget how he got to Kalamazoo -- maybe he
hitchhiked, maybe he took a bus, I don't think he drove. But he
showed up and he didn't have a place to stay. I had flown out
with my dad, and we had a motel room together, and if I remember
right Dad was nice enough to get another room for himself so
Brad could stay with me, and we wound up just talking and
talking and had a great time. Brad stayed at our house during
the Brooklyn convention -- he drove out for that in his red
Maverick -- and we were close friends for several years, he was
(is) just a little older than me. But I say the Kalamazoo
convention was important in my life because if Brad and I hadn't
become friends I almost certainly wouldn't have attended the
college I did. Brad told me he'd heard there was a pretty good
SOM community at Carleton College in Minnesota . . . that got me
interested in finding out more about the school, and that's
where I wound up deciding to go. I don't think, living in New
York, I would have ever heard of Carleton had it not been for
Brad. (I found this amusing . . . I did meet a fellow student at
Carleton who grew up playing SOM and remembered reading about me
in the Review!)
One other fun
thing . . . Steve Barkan and James Williams were pretty serious
slow-pitch softball players, and Mr. Richman sponsored their
team in whatever rec league it was they were in, they had green
jerseys with "Strat-o-Matic" in gold on the front. I remember
going to some of their games . . . I'm pretty sure I never played for
them, much as I wanted to, I was okay for a high school
slow-pitch player but these guys were grownups and really quite
a bit better, I'm sure I would have been out of my depth trying
to play.
I graduated from
high school in 1975, and Mr. Richman offered me a chance to work
at SOM again that summer, specifically to help develop the
hockey game he was working on. But my dad was changing jobs
again and our family moved away from Port Washington right after
I graduated, to a small town in southeastern Ohio. I went along
and got my first job at a radio station, at age 17. I had wanted
to be a disk jockey from the time I was 5, and later as I got
interested in sports I thought it would be great to do
play-by-play. I was also interested in newspaper reporting, but
radio was my first love, and that's what I've done in various
forms for most of my life since then, although I've been away
from radio since the end of 2008.
I've had a fair
amount of involvement in sports in my radio career. For five
years in the 1980s I was sports director for a state radio
network in Minnesota, and in addition to doing daily sports
reports I would cover games and interview athletes and coaches
and team officials. Much of that time I did a weekly call-in
show during Twins baseball season with guests from the team, and
I was lucky enough to cover Games 1 and 7 of the 1987 World
Series at the Metrodome and do locker room interviews afterward.
I also did play-by-play of University of Minnesota football for
two years on that state network and got to broadcast games from
some of the great venues of college football, like Michigan
Stadium and Ohio Stadium and Memorial Stadium at the University
of Oklahoma.
After I left that
job I spent two years as editor of the Minnesota Twins' program
and monthly magazine, and later I wrote for those publications
(and the team yearbook) as a freelance writer. I spent a season
as the host of the Minnesota North Stars' hockey team radio
broadcasts, which also included a lot of player and coach
interviews, and I did quite a bit of small college and high
school play-by-play as part of a radio job I had later in St.
Cloud, Minnesota, where I was the host of a morning show on a
news/talk station.
But back to SOM . .
. I
took a year after high school to work in radio before I started
college in 1976, and I didn't play a lot of SOM during the
school year -- until the spring of my junior year, when a friend of
mine who was also on the college basketball team got interested
in SOM basketball. We played a lot of head-to-head SOM hoops for
the rest of the time I was in school and had a tremendous amount
of fun and got to be good friends. He's now a professor at the
University of Wisconsin.
The first
face-to-face SOM baseball league I was ever in was a couple of
years after I graduated, I was back in town working at my alma
mater and started a league with some guys who were still in
school. I got to be good friends with them from playing SOM
together and we all wound up being in each others' weddings. We
continued playing on a play-by-mail basis for a couple of years
after they graduated and we all wound up in different locations.
The last time I was
involved in an SOM league was in the summer of 1988, I was in a
face-to-face league with a number of other people who worked in
media in Minneapolis-St. Paul. I'm happy to say that was the
only SOM pennant I've ever won! But I wound up having less and
less free time as the years went by. I got married in 1983, my
wife had two children from her first marriage who lived with us,
and then we had twins in 1985, so we had a lot going on. Plus I
was usually working at least one part-time job in addition to my
full-time employment, so there really wasn't much time. I
continued buying the new SOM sets each year well into the '90s
but never did anything more than look at them. I wound up
selling all my old SOM games and sets in the early 2000s.
Once our youngest
went to college in 2003 I started to get into gaming again,
although I'm sorry to say I haven't played SOM in that time. I
still have very fond feelings about the game and the people who
play it, though, and I'm extremely grateful for all the great
things my SOM experience brought to my life.
-----------------------
If you would like to contact J.G. to ask him questions related
to his interview, he is available via his email at:
jgpreston@gmail.com or on
facebook at
www.facebook.com/jgpreston
Other Sections to view in this exciting issue :
(to view the interviews, articles and special sections click on
the links {underline} and this will take you to the appropriate
webpage)
♦
RETURN TO NEWSLETTER MAIN PAGE
♦
INTERVIEW with SCOTT SIMKUS,
editor and chief of the Outside Baseball Bulletin and lead consultants on Strat-o-matic's first official Negro League
♦
INTERVIEW with GLENN GUZZO: author of "Strat-o-matic Fanatics",
SOM columnist.
(Part I of his amazing interview)
♦
ARTICLE by LARRY BRAUS --
assistant for
newsletter, discusses his experiences with
various conventions and tournaments since 1972
♦
QUIZ
ABOUT THE SOM BASEBALL CARDS via the SECRET CONSULTANT
questions about the Baseball Cards, unique cards, times of new
changes ...
♦
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ON-LINE SOM RESOURCES
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Contact Us for Questions or Submissions:
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Founder/Editor, the
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email:
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